WoW – More fun together!

Some Nights, The Raid Runs You

Let’s start at the beginning, a week back when Logarithm told me he had army duty this weekend and wouldn’t be able to tank. Not a problem. I just got our friend Repgrind to gear up her dk tank as her next alt. You raid leaders who don’t have someone who says, “Oh, we really need a holy pally? Spare tank? One-handed sheep-herder? I can bring that” – I feel sorry for you guys.

Then Falahla tells me she can’t play Saturday. I can manage that too; one of our healers’ boyfriend was hoping for a chance to raid on his mage, I’ll just swap him in. And of course we’re just down one dps right now completely so I need to find that 10th man. I can manage that. Of course, I have to find someone who isn’t in the other Friday/Saturday night raid, but how hard could that be?

Well Friday afternoon rolled around and I didn’t have anyone, but I was actually on WoW in early afternoon so I decided to make an effort. Between sessions with the rented steam cleaner and my carpets, I scanned guild for a likely victim…. hmmm… there’s Fyuria. He raids Sunday/Monday but he mentioned his dk was interested in getting a few runs in, maybe he’s available. Whisper him. He’d love to help but he’s working Saturday and doing moving-related chores Friday night. Too bad. I mention that we’re going to Halfus and the twin dragons tonight (Friday) and that since his raid is working on BD, he could bring his main with us if he could fill in. I think that intrigued him; he asked about our start time, and then a minute later came back with a “Sure, I can rearrange things and be there”. Success!

So then raid time rolls around. We have one raider in a roll she doesn’t usually player, one substitute, but a pretty good feel for things. We clear the trash, pull Halfus, and one-shot him again. The healing was a bit hairy but Kalyon’s tanking was awesome. The nice thing about Halfus is we’ve gotten good enough at him that it feels like we have a solid shot at downing him no matter what the combo.

We cleared to the twins and settled in for however many attempts it would take. I’d like to say we one-shot things, but we actually did not. We had to work out positioning issues, how to handle things like getting sucked into Twilight, how to deal with the boss being offset a bit…. how to know the dragons are switching, who can iceblock or disperse out of a Blackout, who needs to be dispelled and share the pain, that sort of thing. Halfway through Reversion switches to tanking and we have Kalyon switch to her mage Karius. The extra ranged seems to help a lot (one issue we were having was ranged taking too much damage from meteors while running around)

Finally, one attempt, everything clicks and boom, they’re dead! That puts us at 6/12 for the expansion!

We discuss briefly and have some miscommunications and end up at Throne of Four Winds. Again, first time for Kalyon tanking though she’s healed here and first time at all for Fyuria. I pick Kalyon to heal, letting our shammy take Reversion. and off we go. Three platform swaps later and the bosses go down perfectly. On that fight, we have learned all the mechanics so well that the only place we risk wipes is in getting one boss dead too soon. Last week that happened twice; this week we one shot the place.

So off to Magmaw to get a head start on BD. One of my healers is whispering me as we go, warning me she’s really tired. Her sister just had a baby and the whole family is somewhat stressed and not sleeping right now. I understand and sympathize but since I can’t replace her at this point and we want to down Magmaw, I ask her to carry on, and she agrees.

The giant worm looms over us like a …. um… giant worm. With arms. As usual. First time for Kalyon to tank him! We get started, I get in position and realize that the hunter and rogue are both going to misdirect parasites to me… eeep…. Reversion always comes to Magmaw on his hunter and he does misdirect to me because I have ginormous healing aggro anyway, but I guess I didn’t really pay attention to that fact before. No pressure, Analogue!

We actually wipe to some stupid stuff. And then to Kalyon dying and I honestly didn’t know whether it was her new-ness to tanking the fight, or our healer who was operating on very little sleep, to encourage. Whatever. A third wipe and we’re all getting grumpy, so Reversion says the magical “Last pull of the night” words and we kill the dang worm.

So anyway, 4 bosses in one night is the best we’ve done yet this expansion! Woot!

Saturday night, I’m getting the group set up. I’d arranged with a ret pally in guild to fill our empty slot since Fyuria couldn’t. We had Jhudora’s friend coming on his mage. We were good. I thought.

My first sign of trouble was when Jhudora told me her friend’s schedule had just been changed and he couldn’t raid with us. And then when I started inviting people and my sleepy healer from last night wasn’t online. And then when the paladin said that 1, he had gotten saved to Omnomtron and 2, he wasn’t sure if the other competing raid wanted him.

We can handle this, I think. We happened to be in vent with a guild shadow priest who hadn’t gotten much raiding in yet, and he was interested in coming in, even just on Omnomtron and then stepping out for the paladin. We could do that. And I convinced Jhudora to beg a friend to come in for us. Reversion went to town and talked to Trade chat. We got a holy paladin, we summoned everyone, and we went to meet the Council of ‘Trons.

People killed adds. People ran away when they had debuffs. People interrupted stuff, didn’t stand in bad, switched targets, and we one-shot the big guys. Not our first one shot but the first one with so many non-regulars! It felt great! And…. Security Measure Alpha, my pretty ring, dropped, and I had a bad moment. Jhudora’s priest already had the ring… and I really really wanted it… but there was the pugged paladin. I had to let him roll. And… two shadow priests, both with healing offsets and talents that mean they like spirit just fine…

I sighed and told them to roll, and Eltard won the ring. I have to say I was glad it stayed in our raid. It’ll drop again, those guys are so farm it isn’t funny.

Downstairs to Maloriak, the only other boss in here we’ve downed before. We clear trash, we explain the fight, we start wiping. And wiping. I analyze the paladin’s healing. This doesn’t make any sense…. he’s using nothing but Divine Light and Word of Glory, with a couple Holy Shocks. He’s beaconed Kalyon but is doing 80% of his heals on her and 10% on Reversion. Then I figure it out; he’s hitting Kalyon with Divine Light and using the Holy Power that generates to heal Reversion with Word of Glory. Um. Sorry, but once Rev gets more than 3 little adds on him, he’s going to need more than that. I gently ask him to heal Reversion directly, and the next attempt is more stable.

Not long after that, Mr. Paladin has to go – family aggro. Sigh. I look around. Someone in raid mentions Phlame, a lovely guild priest. She agrees to come in! We go summon her and I notice that she’s an absolutely adorable dwarf. Awwww.

I’d like to say that change did it for us. That would be a lie. At 10:50, Reversion announces “Last pull of the night”. And this time everything works. Reversion will have to give more details but what made all the difference was we had Eltard, standing out and spriesting, call out how many adds had been released, when to let more through and when to cancel. That let Grom concentrate on interrupts. It’s hard to do that and watch the adds and melee all at once. We also had to be really precise at who had what assignments. We had Cyla purge Remedy, Grom interrupt adds, and Kalyon disrupt the Arcane Storms. It worked. The adds came when we wanted them, we got into the final phase, kept enough people alive long enough, and she died. And dropped Kerick’s paladin bracers as she’s on her dk tanking. Stupid bosses.

Two last notes: if anyone thinks we sound cool, and might want to run with us, let us know. We’re looking for a good dps, preferably with a side of tank but a good dps is the important thing.

Second: This is why I love VuhDo:

See that icon on Approximate? We’re doing Magmaw, and it means that there’s a parasite in him. I know two things: he’s going to need more heals, and shortly, it’s going to jump out and need killing. I also know when nobody has a parasite and can reassure the raid. (Sorry honey; this is the only shot I caught. Approximate was not the only worm-victim that night!)

See I updated VuhDo two weeks ago and realized all these cool new icons had been added in, I didn’t have to do any extra work to get this! No GridStatusParasitesInMyStomach or anything!

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25 Responses

I’m sorry to hear Saturday was so crazy! Ado and Kerick told me I wasn’t allowed to miss anymore raid nights. Wow- they’re going to be disappointed in a couple weeks. But on the upside, even with all the craziness, at least you got the bosses down!

They were gloves, actually, but yeah … Kerick was sad. Oh well, maybe the crystal can go towards … oh … he has blue crap that’s not worth enchanting. Curses!
Kalyon got (dps) bracers though!
And Karius got to actually participate in a first kill! And set dragons on fire. Of course, Blastwave on Maloriak adds would be even better but … maybe someday. ;)

It was a fun weekend over all, and I look forward to many more, but we can certainly do without the personnel issues. Not that I’ll be helping with that at all this weekend, and for that I apologize in advance. I have nothing official scheduled for saturday night however, and I will have the laptop with me. I’ll let you know if it looks like I have enough of a connection to raid if needed. But overall, 6/12 is pretty cool right now, and I think this group is certainly more than capable of clearing this expansion… And I certainly can’t wait to do it with you guys! If you have to score a new boss kill this weekend, by all means go for it, but promise to left me help on that one next weekend :) But again, let’s keep killing the farm bosses for awhile yet. I still need about 2360 more valor points for 2 pieces of tier.

There are so many better pieces on early bosses that have both spirit and haste, that the bonuses really aren’t worth getting the tier pieces for.

Chest off Magmaw.
Boots off Omnitron.
Legs off Halfus.
Shoulders off Chimaeron. (not necessarily better since they have mastery, but they don’t require a token)
Gloves off Maloriak.
Helm off Twilight Council.

There’s also an awesome cloak off Val and T but I am considering getting the VP cloak just because the other healers (and spriest) might also be wanting to roll on it. Or I could just buy more boots to sell.

The Ramkahen rep belt is perfect.
Bracers … we’re stuck with blues til we kill Cho’gall.
The crafted shield is lovely.
Weapons … ugh. Let’s not go there. I’m still pissed that there are multiple easily-accessible daggers (Incineratus anyone? Our DPS casters all have one already) but no 1H swords/maces unless you get lucky on BWD trash or kill Cho’gall.

Ah! I hadn’t looked at Nef yet … still two dragons (or dragon-like thingies in the case of Chim) to kill before we see him. But still … the two weapons I can get are off the two end bosses? (Or a rare random BoE drop off a tiny amount of trash in BWD) How is that even remotely ‘fair’? (In quotes because fair is often a nebulous concept depending on whose point of view you are observing things from)

Sorry Grom. A weapon off MAGMAW (the first boss we killed this expansion) can’t be compared to weapons off end bosses. You’re not gonna win this one no matter how hard you try. You have many, many more chances for yours to drop.